If you are transferring an image rather than drawing directly onto your block, you can print out one directly onto plain paper. Use a very soft drawing pencil, such as a 6B, to color in all the positive (black) parts of your image. Placing the paper face-down on the block and rubbing the back perfectly transfers the graphite in reverse order onto the block. This reversal is necessary to create a final print that faces correctly, which is especially important when text is involved.
After filling in the positive areas of the graphite transfer in marker, the block gets carved to remove the negative (white) areas. Try using the straight-knife tool to trace the lines around the edge of your positive image. When you use the small U-gouge or V-gouge tools to carve away the background near these areas, the tools follow the cut you made with the straight knife, which reduces the chance that you will cut into the positive areas. Use the widest U-gouge to remove the largest areas of negative space.
Ink is spread out in a straight line on a nonporous surface. Always roll the brayer in a repeated forward motion into the ink, never back and forth. This way, the ink adheres evenly over the whole surface of the brayer, not just in one spot. When inking the block, you may see stray areas in the negative space that were not carved away enough and caught ink. Carefully carve these spots down to get rid of marks in the white areas of your final print.
Learning how much ink to use is partly a matter of experience. When you see ink has spread beyond the edges of the positive parts of the final print, you've used too much. The ink should completely cover all raised surfaces of the block without creating a texture that looks like raised peaks. Conversely, too little ink results in a print with ink that is not completely solid, called a "salty" print.
While a simple kitchen spoon can be used to rub the back of the print and transfer the ink, rubbing tools called barrens make the job quicker. Bamboo barrens are inexpensive and have a slightly textured surface that transfers the ink well. Pull up a corner of the print to check your progress while keeping the paper in place. Salty prints can also result from too little pressure. To create large editions with completely identical results, relief printing presses are used instead of hand tools.